Medical diagnoses utilizing an electronic endoscope have widely been practiced in the medical field these days. The electronic endoscope has an imaging device like a CCD, which is built in an end of an elongated probing portion that is introduced into a body cavity, so that the CCD takes an image signal from an internal body site. The image signal is processed in a processor, to display an image of the internal body site, called an endoscopic image, on a monitor. For the purpose of making examinations and diagnoses on many patients at the same time, it is usual to install a number of electronic endoscopes and the processors in the same hospital. For example, an examination room is partitioned into a number of compartments, and a pair of electronic endoscope and processor is installed in each compartment.
Meanwhile, in order to support trainees and those doctors who are unskilled at using the electronic endoscope for diagnosis, an operation support system has been suggested for example in Japanese Laid-open Patent Applications Nos. 2000-271147 and 2005-111080, wherein an instruction room is provided for a doctor skilled in the endoscopic diagnosis to monitor endoscopic images obtained through an electronic endoscope that is operated by an operator in a remote examination room, so that the skilled doctor may give proper instructions to the operator in a real time fashion.
In the above-mentioned prior arts, the instruction room and the examination room are interconnected through a communication line, like ISDN, so as to communicate data of the endoscopic images and the instructions through the communication line. However, wiring of the communication line is cumbersome especially where there are a number of examination rooms or booths for the endoscopic examination.